This Day in History: March 7, 1965: “Bloody Sunday” in Selma

SELMA, Ala. (WCSC) — Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at Brown Chapel AME Church 61 years ago to demand the right to vote.

Civil rights activists including John Lewis and Hosea Williams walked six blocks to Broad Street and across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, where they were met by more than 50 state troopers and dozens of officers on horseback.

When the demonstrators refused to turn back, they were beaten. At least 17 were hospitalized and 40 others received treatment for injuries and the effects of tear gas.

The attack was broadcast on national television. Two weeks later, with federal protection, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led 3,200 civil rights protesters on a 49-mile march from Selma to Montgomery.

In August 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. The federal legislation outlawed discriminatory practices, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to vote.